As advances in wireless communication technology progress, it is desirable to improve the capacity of LTE-A networks by deploying heterogeneous networks to achieve cell-splitting gains and Multi-User Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MU-MIMO). It is expected that co-channel interference originating from either inter-cell or co-scheduled intra-cell users can be a factor in achieving higher network capacity.
It is known to implement interference mitigation at the network side, for example, at the transmitting base station, by employing coordinated multi-point techniques (CoMP). These CoMP techniques involve base transceiver stations being coordinated such that base transceiver stations from multiple cells can transmit signals to the UE and receive signals from the UE with reduced interference.
However, interference may occur at a User Equipment (UE) when the UE experiences, for example, co-channel interference originating from either inter-cell communication to the UE or co-scheduled intra-cell communications to the UE; both of which can limit performance.